The 19-year-old said he wrote the remarks in a moment of immaturity, but that was not enough to spare him prison.

A court in Uzbekistan has sentenced a teenager to two-and-a-half years in prison for insulting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. 

 The 19-year-old, a resident of the Kattakurgan district in the Samarkand region, was found by the court to have written comments on Instagram that could be deemed defamatory of the president. The verdict was passed in October but only made public by the Supreme Court late last week.

According to the case materials, the man, who has been identified only by his initials, I.D., left the incriminating comment, the specific content of which has not been disclosed, under a video entitled “Presidential Family” while he was working in Russia in summer. He later deleted the comment on the advice of acquaintances. 

 Investigators concluded that the comment contained “actions insulting and discrediting the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan.”

 When the young man found out a criminal case had been initiated against him, he voluntarily returned to Uzbekistan, on August 24. 

 During court proceedings, the man insisted he did not oppose Mirziyoyev’s policies and was merely acting with youthful immaturity when he penned the offensive remarks. He pleaded guilty and expressed regret, according to the Supreme Court. 

 The amendment to Uzbekistan’s criminal code that made online “insult and slander” of the head of state an offense was adopted in March 2021. The offense is punishable by up to five years in prison. 

No information is available on how many individuals have been charged and sentenced for the crime of insulting the president since that change to the law. Uzbek media did, however, report in February 2022 on the case of citizen journalist called Sobirjon Babaniyazov who was sentenced to three years in prison for insulting both Mirziyoyev and his late predecessor, Islam Karimov.

Source: Eurasianet

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Ensure Safety of Karakalpak Lawyer Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov in Prison

As if arbitrarily jailing the outspoken Karakalpak blogger and lawyer Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov on a 16-year prison sentence on January 31 for his alleged role in the July 2022 Karakalpakstan protests wasn’t enough for the Uzbek authorities, now they are isolating and punishing him further.

On September 19, Tazhimuratov’s lawyer Sergey Mayorov released a video statement describing his client’s prison conditions after meeting with him the day before.

In the video, Mayorov noted how prison officials have been failing to provide Tazhimuratov adequate health care or food and are limiting his right to receive information from the outside world. Tazhimuratov doesn’t have access to a prison library or media, or to a television. He is kept isolated in a single cell and prison officials also apparently won’t assign Tazhimuratov to a work detail, further limiting his contact with other prisoners.

Mayorov intends to file complaints with the prosecutor, prison administration officials, and law enforcement bodies, outlining how his client’s rights “are being violated while he is serving his prison sentence.”

Mayorov separately told Human Rights Watch that Tazhimuratov had noticeably lost weight and that the conditions of his imprisonment were taking a serious toll on his client’s physical and psychological health.

Like any detainee, Tazhimuratov has a right to absolute protection against inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as his other basic rights including to adequate nutrition and health care. The United Nations Minimum Standard on the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, state that “the prison system … shall not aggravate the suffering inherent in [depriving a person of his liberty].” They also stipulate that “prison administrations and other competent authorities should offer education, vocational training and work.”

Tazhimuratov, whose “crime” was to call for a peaceful protest and speak out against proposed constitutional amendments that would have stripped Karakalpakstan of its sovereign status, should not be languishing in prison.

Until Tazhimuratov is free, Uzbek authorities have the responsibility to ensure he suffers no further harm in prison and that he is not isolated from others without just cause. Prison officials should urgently and thoroughly review the conditions in which Tazhimuratov is being held and ensure he has access to adequate health care and food, and is able to receive news and other information from the outside world.

Source: HRW News

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Supporters of a lawyer and activist sentenced to a lengthy term in prison in Uzbekistan earlier this year over a purported separatist plot say he is being mistreated in prison and have pleaded for the president to intervene.

Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov’s lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, said this week that his client has in recent weeks been subjected to both mental and physical abuse at a prison in the Zangiota district, which lies outside the capital, Tashkent. Tazhimuratov received a 16-year sentence in January, but was only transferred to the Zangiota prison at the start of April.

The prison in Zangiota was built a few years ago to replace a notorious facility called Tashtyurma, a name that remains commonly used.

In a video appeal recorded after visiting the prison on April 18, Mayorov said Tazhimuratov, 44, should be designated a political prisoner and called on President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to intercede. 

“It seems the order has been given by the authorities to create unbearable conditions for him in his cell,” Mayorov said. “They gave him an old, tattered mattress without cotton wool. They gave him a filthy pillow and terrible sheets. And all this is being done pointedly so as to humiliate and insult him.”

Tazhimuratov is currently in the process of mounting an appeal with the Supreme Court. Mayorov alleges that his client was bound and beaten by prison escorts while being delivered to the Supreme Court to acquaint himself with case files.

“The same beatings happened in the cell only because he refused to take illegal actions,” Mayorov said. “They make him do the cleaning. He doesn’t refuse to clean the cell, but they don’t give him a broom, a rag, a bucket. They don’t give him anything.”

Tazhimuratov’s younger brother, Renat, has also claimed abuse. He told Eurasianet that the last time he saw his brother was at an interim holding facility in Bukhara in late March and that his mood was still upbeat at the time.

“But he was angry as never before [when Mayorov visited him] because of the mistreatment he got from prison officials in Tashtyurma. They are making a mockery of him,” he said.

Renat Tazhimuratov, who is also acting as a legal representative for his brother, says he had been due for a meeting in the prison on April 19, but that officials cancelled the encounter at the last moment on a technicality. 

No date has yet been set for an appeal heating, but the Tazhimuratov family is not hopeful of securing a positive outcome. 

“Dauletmurat is sure that the court will reject the appeal,” Renat Tazhimuratov said.

Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov was the lead defendant in a trial in January against a large group of people accused of either whipping up or participating in unrest in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan last July. Thousands had emerged onto the streets in a highly rare show of mass dissent when it emerged that the government was planning constitutional reforms that stood to dilute Karakalpak autonomy. At least 21 people are known to have been killed after law enforcement used what some activists have described as disproportionate force to suppress the mass gatherings. 

All 22 people that went on trial in January were found guilty, although a few were permitted to leave jail under certain conditions. But Tazhimuratov was identified as ringleader and handed the harshest sentence. He was the only defendant to refuse to plead guilt.

During the trial, Tazhimuratov testified that he was beaten on multiple occasions by law enforcement in the early days of detention. Human Rights Watch later urged the Uzbek government to address Tazhimuratov’s allegations and investigate the heavy-handed response to the protests by security forces.

No law enforcement officers are known to have been prosecuted for misconduct during their suppression of the unrest. In February, the General Prosecutor’s Office issued a statement on the arrest of three police officers during investigations into the use of excessive force, but no updates have been provided since.

Source : Eurasianet

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